To meet their needs, she depends on the small piece of land she and her husband had farmed together for many years. But just months after his funeral, her in-laws sold the land without her knowledge.
“We only realised this when the buyer came to evict us,” said Chimanyiwa in a recent interview with The Zimbabwean. Thankfully, she was able to regain use of the land after she got legal assistance from The Zimbabwe Women’s Legal Resources Network (ZWLRN), a civil society group that campaigns for land rights.
ZWLRN’s Legal Officer Shupikai Ndemera said the plight of women with regard to land rights was a common one in Zimbabwe, although Chimanyiwa was more fortunate than most other women. “Many never regain access or rights to matrimonial land lost after divorce or the death of a spouse,” she said.
Male relative
Women account for nearly half of all farm labour, and are responsible for 80–90 per cent of food processing, storage and transport, as well as hoeing and weeding. “But we have noticed that women often lack rights to land. Land rights tend to be held and controlled by men. Women have access mainly through a male relative, usually a father or husband,” she explained.
Women are routinely obliged to hand over the proceeds of any farm sales to a male and have little say over how those earnings are used. “Moreover, such limited access is very tenuous and can be quickly lost. In one of our studies it showed that more than one third of widows lost access to family land when their husbands died. It is this dependency on men that leaves many women vulnerable,” Ndemera said.
She noted that the number of polygamous households have complicated things further. “Often senior and junior wives, their children and several sets of in-laws compete for access. But, as the legal land title holder, the man can do whatever he wants with the land. Some just sell the land without informing their wives,” she said.
Secure access
She noted that women groups were fighting to introduce or strengthen laws intended to give women more secure access to land and are combating social norms and practices that stand in their way.
However, the Family Support Caring Trust (FSCT) has said the spread of HIV and AIDS and the stigma associated with the disease have only made women’s land rights more precarious.
“Widows of men who die from the disease have often been accused of bringing the disease into the family, possibly leading to the confiscation of their land and other property,” said programmes director Gracious Masuku. “As a result, they and their children are frequently forced to survive on society’s margins. They often lose access to land, and must survive by selling food on the street.”
Masuku explained: “Such women sometimes lose custody of their children, end up going into sex work or become squatters. And because they are unable to provide for themselves, they become more vulnerable to violence and other abuse.”
Risky behaviour
She added that the quality of women’s lives could be improved by according them more decision-making power over land. “We have found that sex work and other risky behaviour declines dramatically when women have secure assets and property rights. Land and property rights are therefore vital to sexual equality and food security,” Masuku aid.
Susan Makate lost her land rights to relatives of her husband following his death in 2007. “My land was inherited by my husband’s relatives who pushed me out and now I am landless,” she said.
Traditional leader Chief Zimunya pointed out that although historically women did not have direct rights over land, they had traditional protection that ensured their continued access even after separation, divorce or widowhood.
“We have traditional means of arbitration to which women could appeal if access to land is contested. The government has passed a law giving women equal rights to those of men in inheriting land and other property, overturning traditional norms that favoured males,” he said.
Legal solutions
“During titling operations, it is mainly men who get their names on the documents because they are deemed to be the household heads. But those widows lucky enough to get land are allocated the smallest lots,” he explained.
Land rights activists suggested that one way to give women guaranteed access to land would be to separate formal ownership of land from the ability to use it.
Human rights lawyer Tawengwa Gonora said while the land may be registered in the name of a man, he would be barred from selling it without the consent of his wife or wives or other heirs.
“Another alternative would be for land to be put in the name of families, or for both men and women to have their names on the certificate,” he suggested. “Where resources such as water, sanitation and grazing land have to be shared communally, then whole communities could be identified as owners of the land, with everyone having equal access.” Recent amendments to the inheritance law make the surviving spouse, whether male or female, the legitimate heir. But lack of information about this means that many women in rural areas are not aware of it and unable to stand up for their rights.
Post published in: News